Justin Bieber’s Hugs Will Save Us All

God. Everything is so depressing and scary right now, huh? The news is a nightmare, Twitter is a horror show, Facebook is all people you went to college with having slow meltdowns. The world seems a bit impossible, doesn’t it? Thank God, then, for Justin Bieber, a Canadian song angel sent to us, time and time again, to heal our wounded psyches. Bieber has taken to his Instagram to remind us of something very important: it is nice to hug people. Yes! No simpler statement than that, and yet a profound one in these times, when all many of us want to do is lie alone in a bathtub full of gin and listen to Fumbling Towards Ecstasy until the dark world forgets us.

It’s unclear what prompted Bieber to nail his five Instagram theses to the church doors of our hearts late Thursday night. But we’re so glad he did. In the posts, we see Bieber hugging a group of who we assume are fans.

There he is, hair blond and shorn as Kristen Stewart’s, greeting a cluster of young women and one young man, giving them hugs. A basic but necessary act of human connection. The beautiful images would say enough on their own, but Bieber went one step further, adding captions to his five Instagram prayers.

The first four captions are the same: “Let’s hug each other more.” Yes, let’s. The fifth and final caption becomes more urgent, less of a suggestion and more of an imperative for this broken world: “Everyone just needs to hug more.” Do you hear that, everyone? You just need to hug more. That’s all. Think of all that could be solved—all the worry, all the animus, all the deep-seated suspicion of difference—if we all just pressed our bodies against one another’s and felt that mutual pulse, that same warmth, the communal rise and fall of our chests. Everyone just needs to hug more. It’s true. Start today, in your own communities. You don’t need to shave your head, move to Canada, record a bunch of platinum records, then move to Los Angeles to do it. You can do it on your own terms, however it works best in your life.

But take this mandate to heart, please. Hug a bunch. Hug so much. Hug til the huggin’ hurts, as the country song I’m currently writing goes. (Hopefully Justin Bieber will perform it someday.) Hug in public. Hug in private. Even do that special kind of hug that only two people or maybe three or maybe even a group that’s all met on some sort of private listserv and agrees to do things safely and consensually who really love each other can do. However it works for you, do some hugging. And be sure to thank Justin Bieber before, during, and after. Always be hugging Justin Bieber in your mind’s eye. If you weren’t already.

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